Maintaining Process and Improving Grammar Use in Writing

 

 

Bambang Yudi Cahyono

 

 

This exploratory study examined how process writing can be maintained and, at the same time, grammar use can be improved in a writing class. It was motivated by the fact that in an advanced writing class emphasizing process writing, the essays of Indonesian learners of EFL (English as a Foreign Language) contained a great number of grammatical errors. Twenty students were asked to write argumentative essays on a particular topic. Based on grammatical errors in the essays, they were given assignments in the form of completion, sentence-correction, and paragraph-editing exercises in addition to regular process writing. Following the correction of students’ work on those exercises, written feedback was given. At the end of the treatment, the students were asked to write argumentative essays on the same topic again. A comparison of the first and second essays showed that the frequency of grammatical errors in the second essays decreased significantly. Furthermore, analysis of essays by using the ESL Composition Profile indicated a significant improvement in students’ overall performance, including grammar use, in English composition. Results from this study seemed to support the combination of process-oriented writing and explicit grammar instruction.

 

 

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Cahyono, B. Y. (2002). Maintaining process and improving grammar use in writing. Melbourne Papers in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, 1, 57-68.

 

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